British players and officials listed are all
English, except where stated.

1896 - Games of the I
Olympiad (Athens, Greece)

Football was played at the first modern Olympics,
but records do not state who won.

1900 - Games of the II
Olympiad (Paris, France)

Football
was played as a demonstration sport, with no medals being awarded. An
English club side, Upton Park, played one game (on September 20) and
defeated their hosts, Club
Français, 4-0,
at Velodrome Municipal de Vincennes. They were declared winners of the tournament.

1904 - Games of the III
Olympiad (St. Louis, USA)

The
football tournament was won by a Canadian club team. No British team took
part.

1908 - Games of the IV
Olympiad (London)

The Great
Britain squad was represented by the England amateur team that had won all
ten of their previous fixtures.

England
goalkeeper, Ron Brebner, saved an early penalty from Hungary's
Bodnár, with the
score goalless. Centre-half, Ted Hanney went off injured at half-time and
left Britain with ten men for the second half.

With Britain leading 2-1, the Danish defender, Buchwald,
was taken off with an arm injury in the thirtieth minute, leaving Denmark to
play the final hour with ten men. Great
Britain won the gold medals.

1916 - Games of the VI
Olympiad

The
Olympic Games were cancelled due to the first world war.

1920 - Games of the VII
Olympiad (Antwerp, Belgium)

In an
attempt to emulate the pre-war Olympic successes, Great
Britain was, once more, represented by the England amateur team (with a
Welsh trainer).

Great
Britain did not enter a team in the Olympic Games. Uruguay won the gold
medals.

1928 - Games of the IX
Olympiad (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Great
Britain did not enter a team in the Olympic Games. Uruguay won the gold
medals.

1932 - Games of the X
Olympiad (Los Angeles, USA)

No
football tournament was held at the Los Angeles Olympics.

1936 - Games of the XI
Olympiad (Berlin, Germany)

Football
and Great Britain returned to the Olympics and, for the first time, the
British squad included players from all four of the home nations, though
neither of the two Welshmen played in the tournament.

Queen's
Park and Scotland striker, Mac Dodds, became the first non-Englishman to
score for Great Britain, when he netted the opening goal. Belfast Celtic
full-back, Bertie Fulton, became the first Irishman to play for Britain.

This was
a hastily-arranged game between two teams that had been eliminated in the
quarter-finals. Seven players made their debuts for the British side and it
was the first to include representatives from all four nations of the United
Kingdom.

1940 - Games of the XII
Olympiad

The
Olympic Games were cancelled due to the second world war.

1944 - Games of the XIII
Olympiad

The
Olympic Games were cancelled due to the second world war.

1948 - Games of the XIV
Olympiad (London)

The
Football Association turned to a Scottish manager (who was about to lead
Manchester United to the FA Cup) and gave him the honour of selecting the
teams to represent Great Britain on home soil. The committee still selected
the squad, though, and, for the first and only time, the English contingent
made up less than half of it. Players from all four home nations were to
appear and score in the Games, also for the first and only time.

This was
almost an England v. Scotland amateur international. Eight members of the
British team (actually England, plus Welsh striker, Frank Donovan) and five
members of the Queen's Park team made it to the Olympic squad, although
Queen's Park finished bottom of Scottish Division A and were
relegated.

Full-back,
Gwyn Manning, of Troedyrhiw, became the first Welshman to play for Britain
in the Olympics, whilst Barnet's Denis Kelleher became the first player from
Northern Ireland to score for Britain at the Games.

Britain reverted to an
Anglo-Scottish eleven for the bronze medals play-off, but they were unable
to secure the consolation prizes. The game was followed in the stadium by
the final, watched by 60,000 people. Sweden won the gold medals.

1952 - Games of the XV
Olympiad (Helsinki, Finland)

The England manager was
given responsibility for selecting the entire Great Britain squad, as well
as the team for each game.

This was a trial match
for both of Walter Winterbottom's teams. The professional England B team
included future England manager, Ron Greenwood, and a 19-year-old, Bobby
Smith, later of Tottenham Hotspur and England. All of the English players in
the British team made it to the Olympics, plus one of the Scots and one of
the Irishmen.

This was the first game
played by the new West German amateur team, following the second world war.
In the Olympics, however, they represented the whole of Germany. The scorer of Britain's
consolation goal, twelve minutes from time, Bill Slater, went on to
represent the full England team and won the Footballer of the Year award in
1960.

The only non-Englishman
in the team, Tommy Stewart, had captained Scotland to victory against
England, at Wembley, in March, alongside six of his Queen's Park team-mates.
The club finished next to bottom of the Scottish League. Seven of the
England side at Wembley played against Luxembourg. Hungary won the gold
medals.

Great Britain had been
eliminated from the Olympic tournament, before the opening ceremony. To
reclaim some of the financial losses incurred by the Football Association,
most of the team stayed in Finland and played a series of friendlies. They
defeated local Finnish teams, Kuopion and Vaasan, and with
Greece having been eliminated the day before Great Britain, an international
match was organised.

21

29 July 1952
- Norway 2 Great Britain 2[NK]Ullevål
Stadion, Oslo

NKGrierson,
Noble

AD

The British team finally
ended a run of six consecutive defeats against other countries, when they
pulled back a two-goal deficit, with six minutes remaining, against Norway,
who had also taken an early exit from the Olympic tournament.

1956 - Games of the XVI
Olympiad (Melbourne, Australia)

With the Scottish, Welsh
and Irish associations showing little interest in helping to fund the
squad's trip to Australia, the FA was left to use the England amateur team
to represent Great Britain. The selection committee reclaimed the right to
choose the squads and teams, with the manager allowed to pick the team when
they were abroad. For the first time, Britain had to qualify for the
tournament and, in preparation, embarked on a series of friendly fixtures
against two First Division teams (Arsenal and Luton), a Second Division side
(West Ham) and a club from the Third Division South (QPR).

The selection committee
made five changes from the first-leg line-up, seven months earlier. Despite
Britain's elimination, they were invited to the final tournament after a
spate of withdrawals, due to the cost of sending players to Melbourne. On
June 4, the FA announced that they would accept and began to arrange another
set of friendly fixtures for the England team (including three against
First Division sides) in preparation for the long
trip.

The barefooted African
tourists caused a huge shock by defeating the England amateur team on their
own patch. England took the lead in the first minute, but they were afraid
to tackle their opponents on a dry pitch, ideally suited to the Ugandans,
who would be affiliated to FIFA, three years later.

A much better performance
from the England team, who recovered from two goals down, away to a strong
First Division side, to score a late winner. Five days later, they defeated
a representative side from the Isthmian and Athenian Leagues, 3-1, at Plough
Lane, Wimbledon; Coates and Bromilow (2) got the goals.

The England defence was
ripped apart by the accuracy of Bill Curry, who later played for the England
Under-23 side. Five days later, the Olympic team beat a Combined
Universities eleven, 4-1, at the Richmond Road Ground, Kingston upon Thames;
Lewis (2), Hardisty and Dodkins all scored before the interval.

The other home nations
rejoined England in qualification, to create a United Kingdom side once
more, though no Welsh players made it to Italy. This was to be the last amateur Great Britain team to qualify for
the Olympic Games.

The visiting tourists
were selected from the British territories of Barbados, British Guiana,
Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. Peter Kane, who scored a hat-trick in the
second half, turned professional at the end of the month, by joining
Northampton Town of the
Fourth Division,
thus ruling himself out of selection for the Olympic fixtures.

A harsh lesson for the
Olympic hopefuls, although Burnley finished the season as Football League
Champions. Britain's reserve goalkeeper was Bob Wilson, then still a
schoolboy, who went on to win the League and FA Cup double with Arsenal, in
1971.

The 19-year-old
Chelsea goalscorer, Jimmy Greaves, was already a full England international,
whilst their 18-year-old goalkeeper making his debut was Peter Bonetti, who
played for England in the 1970 World Cup.

Irishman, Paddy Hasty
gave Britain the lead
with the first of his hat-trick, before their opponents had even touched the ball, but they had to rely on a
late winner, after the Republic had pulled back from a two-goal deficit.
Every country in the British Isles was represented on the field of play, a
rare occurrence.

The British team, (or,
more accurately, England, plus Irish striker, Hubert Barr) including the
17-year-old, future England coach, Terry Venables, raced into a two-goal
lead in the first fifteen minutes. The Fourth Division side equalised
through Peter Kane, who had begun the season as a British Olympic triallist,
before turning professional.

The
entire Olympic squad got a run-out (apart from Jim Lewis, who was on
holiday) and their extra training at the Royal Air Force base came into its
own as they came from behind on their new home ground, to beat the
newly-promoted Third Division side with a last-minute winner. It was the
ideal send-off for the difficult tasks that they would face in Italy.

With Britain leading 2-1,
after 56 minutes, England full-back, Tommy Thompson was stretchered off with
a broken right leg. The under-23 Brazilian side capitalised on their
numerical advantage and took the points.

Britain made hard work of
beating their Taiwanese opponents on, what was to be, the last ever
appearance by a British amateur side at the Olympic Games. Great Britain
finished 3rd with three points in Group Two. Italy qualified for the
semi-finals with five points. Yugoslavia won the gold medals.

1964 - Games of the XVIII
Olympiad (Tokyo, Japan)

Britain had a new manager
after the first round of qualification fixtures, but they failed to make it
to Japan.

Flushed with the
comparative success achieved by the previous Olympic squad after regular
training sessions together, Norman Creek found it easier to get his
southern-based English players to London. He
was heavily biased towards them in his last games before retirement,
strongly influencing the selection of the British squad, and it was the
England amateur team that took part in the pre-season trial match against
the Third Division side.

Wimbledon striker, Brian
Martin, playing on his home ground, was carried off with a broken right leg
after ten minutes. Ten minutes later, the home side were reduced to nine
men, when John Ashworth suffered a head wound, although he returned for the
first twenty minutes of the second half, before retiring. Britain were still
comfortable winners in Norman Creek's last match as manager.

The English players were,
for the first time, outnumbered by the rest. It was a fine performance, as
well, with Britain coming back from two goals down and then coming back
again to equalise, with two minutes left. There were no Scottish players
present, as Scotland had been playing in Kenya.

Britain were, again,
deprived of their Scottish players, due to a Queen's Park Scottish Cup
replay, but they still stretched their unbeaten run in the British Isles to
nine games, thanks to another dramatic recovery. Both of their goals were
scored in the closing stages of the game, when, at two goals down, all
seemed lost.

In the process of laying
on the only goal against a team that was about to win the Third Division
Championship, Tommy Lawrence sustained a fractured skull and was carried
off. Great Britain had already used their outfield substitute, so, with
twenty minutes left, the substitute goalkeeper, Griffin, had to go on in his
place. Billy Neil was captain again, but he was to miss the return leg in
Greece, due to injury.

Skevofilax missed a
first-half penalty for Greece, but they did not clinch victory until the
last eight minutes, when they scored twice. Four days later, the Greek
Olympic Committee withdrew their team from the competition, after it
transpired that the side that had eliminated Great Britain
(with five changes from the first leg) had
included
professional players. Great Britain declined to take the Greeks' place in
the next round. Hungary won the gold medals.

1968 - Games of the XIX
Olympiad (Mexico City)

Irish and Welsh players
were discarded, whilst at one stage, the Scots were also excluded, but
ultimately, it was another unsuccessful qualifying campaign.

The refusal of Queen's
Park to release three players before their Saturday fixture, caused Charlie
Hughes to ignore them for the qualifier and it was England who went to
Germany and won, despite only having ten fit outfield players. As it turned
out, the Germans ended up with nine fit players, after Bergfelder went off
with concussion and one of their strikers, Faltermeier played on with a leg
injury. The visitors even missed a penalty in the 73rd minute, when Schulte
saved from Dave Andrews, three minutes before Larry Pritchard's clincher.

Another all-English side
fell to a 40-yard stunner from Graham, the lesser-known of the Atkinson
brothers. His elder sibling, 'Big Ron' (who was also in the side) captained
the club to the Third Division Championship that season and went on to
manage several top clubs, including Manchester United.

An all-English eleven
took on a mostly-amateur Irish FA side selected entirely from the Irish
League, though four were full internationals, including Bryan Hamilton, who
went on to win fifty caps and also managed his country. Welshman, Allan
Phillips came on as a substitute for the visitors.

-

8
February 1971
- Preston North End
0 Great Britain 0[0-0]Deepdale Stadium, Preston=(10)(1)

The trials were proving
very successful as another leading First Division club was outplayed on
their own ground. Britain's squad of 18 contained a single (English-based)
Welshman and 17 English players.

The home side took great
confidence from their recent run of five victories away to Football League
clubs, with England also about to clinch their third successive British
Championship title, but very few expected a team of English amateurs (plus
Scottish defender, Bill Currie) to defeat a side containing eight players
that had appeared in the previous year's World Cup.

The story of Great
Britain's amateur team ended as it had begun, 63 years earlier; with an
all-English team, though there was an unused Welsh goalkeeper (Grenville
Millington) on the substitutes' bench. Their opponents were professional in
all but their official status and overwhelmed the plucky Englishmen. Poland
won the gold medals.

1976 - 2012

The FA ended the
distinction between professional and amateur status in 1974. So, without an
amateur national team, they could no longer enter the football tournament of
the Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee attempted to restrict
the obviously 'professional' amateurs from eastern Europe in 1984 by banning
players that had previously played in World Cup qualification matches. In
1992, the football tournament became restricted to under-23 teams,
regardless of status; a rule that ultimately led to the re-entry of the
Great Britain team, when London hosted the Games of the XXX Olympiad in
2012. This was the first
professional British team to take part
in the Games.